Page 191 - Tourism The International Business

This book is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License

• personal selling
The manner in which these are integrated is called the promotional mix.

Exhibit 70: Know the types of people
who visit your community. (Courtesy

Hong Kong Tourist Association.)

Advertising involves developing a campaign theme, selecting those media that best reach target market
audiences, and preparing or ordering the necessary art work, copy, printing, and other production materials to
meet media schedules.
The publicity function manages all matter relating to the issuance of news releases to local and national media;
staging publicity events; and performing supportive services for the other functions comprising the promotional
mix.
When a community commemorates a special day, occasion, or historical event, it uses the vehicle of publicity to

promote interest in it. The main purpose of publicity is to focus immediate attention on the subject. If the event is
well staged, the news releases are well written and placed with appropriate editors, and are of real news value, they
will be published or presented by the media. If it is a gimmick of little news value, and is an obvious attempt to
focus attention on a minor event, it will be ignored.
Many communities hire publicity agents to create and publicize various events such as beauty pageants,
contests, auto shows, and Easter parades. A good publicity agent can get a great deal of experience out of a well-
presented event. He can also get a lot of bad publicity for the community if the event is a flop or if something
unfortunate happens as a result of the event. Some events have been so well publicized that they attracted too many
people to the area, and this resulted in fighting, drunkenness, and considerable police action which turned a good

event into a bad one. Several "rock music shows" and some state fairs have had such negative experiences.

Tourism the International Business 191 A Global Text